FTX CEO says Bitcoin has no future as a payments network
ft.com
ft.com
With that said, it's all moot: go tell the Ukrainian armed Forces, specifically those in the Azov battalion that Bitcoin had no use case, the Come Back Alive campaign started in 2014 and was launched with BTC [0].
Go tell the Ukrainian Government who expedited the legislation to legalize Bitcoin (and other alts) because it allowed for transfer of funds for critical goods when they had to suspend and limit the withdraw of UAH on the day of the invasion and a large outpouring of BTC and other alts came in from all over the World.
These are all things that were battle tested in 2013-14 during the Maidan Revolution, but most will never actually know about any of this because quite frankly you don't have to know.
I don't expect the general public to know about any of this, but this is why I think HN has such a blindspot for things that they simply refuse to accept as a viable network and didn't get to cash in so they end up resenting and repeat the same superficially conjured arguments as it's detractors in the media. You never do the research yourself, and yet remain vocal critics about something you have 2nd hand knpwledge about.
It's hard to accept, and even respect so many of you, when the usecases are all there, but the same talking points remain.
Hell, people will willfully ignore that after the Russian invasion of Kazakhstan earlier this year the miners that had just arrived from China (after it's ban) ended up in the US, many in Texas which has had a massive Wind boon, by a startup backed by none other than Peter Thiel. I personally would have preferred it went to El Salvador, but that was just my opinion, whic hhas now been vindicated because of the Texas energy grid (which would make ENRON blush) issues due to the recent high temperature spikes.
There are also gas flaring recapturing systems built solely for the specific reason of utilizing cheap energy and in turn incentivizing the use of more efficient and environmental systems where traditional tech simply accepted it and shrugged it off as 'business as usual' when it had decades to try and invent something, while at the same time decrying that not enough is being done to offset climate change.
All while lauding how they can the latest trinket delivered to them by Amazon in 24 hours, and ignoring the massive carbon footprint that takes.
The hypocrisy is what is so hard to accept, because this place likes to pat itself on the back for being a place for rational discourse, when in reality it's simply as outlandish as reddit or twitter when it comes to things it didn't see as viable.
PS: Do not mistake Micheal Saylor's misinformed views as the Community's; Bitcoin is not Gold 2.0, it is literately an immutable network, which has a programmable payment system (currently 2 layers) as it's current usecase for the token for which it creates to secure the network.
99.9% of scenarios BTC is inferior to what we already have for day to day transactions.
It's not just warzones, it's places where they simply lack any financial infrastructure; be it politically motivated, or otherwise.
> 99.9% of scenarios BTC is inferior to what we already have for day to day transactions.
See, again, not true: try making a low cost instantaneous transaction to halfway around the World on a weekend. You can't, its simply not possible.
I understand that for most the affluent in developed Western nations, whom you regards as 'we' it seems entirely unnecessary: but in relation to the total amount of Humans on this planet with those options, you are the minority.
And again, you're limited to what the banks and institutions will allow you to do: you have family in Iran, or Russia trying to flee? Good luck getting anything sent over there to help them out because of geopolitics which ultimately harm the People who are trying to get out of those situations.
I think what most will genuinely never be able to comprehend is just how overly complex, over regulated, and quite frankly how bad the modern payment system is: ACH, Swift, SEPA etc...
Unless you do fintech you will never really get any of that, especially if you are of the aforementioned class of person where the most you have had to deal with with was paying higher tx fees at an ATM that one time you used an out network bank.
This sums up the level of most HN on the topic, thank you for proving my point for me. Still, as technologists one cannot help but feel disappointed.
Been around as long as Bitcoin, and unlike Bitcoin it’s banking thr unbanked, allowing FG cheap transfers and being used in millions of real life transactions all across Africa.
So yeah, Bitcoin and most other crypto are a joke compared to actual real life in use technology.
Edit: Bitcoin does fewer than 300k transactions a day, so let’s be generous and say it does a million. That’s 365million transactions a year. MPesa has been regularly handling over 15billion transactions a year.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1139181/m-pesa-transacti...
https://www.statista.com/statistics/730806/daily-number-of-b...
> So yeah, Bitcoin and most other crypto are a joke compared to actual real life in use technology.
> Edit: Bitcoin does fewer than 300k transactions a day, so let’s be generous and say it does a million. That’s 365million transactions a year. MPesa has been regularly handling over 15billion transactions a year.
BTC transferred $3 trillion last year, rivaling Visa/MC [0], so your point is entirely disingenuous, hence why you posted this on a throwaway.
0: https://www.financemagnates.com/cryptocurrency/news/bitcoin-...
The number of transactions that can be made on the Bitcoin network is ridiculously low, which is why it can never be a currency.
What the “volume” represents is the high valuation of a Bitcoin and little else.
And if you further break down those transactions into those that are actual money transfers and payments, vs those that are just financial engineering within crypto or simply Converting money to and from BTC it will look pitifully small.
Furthermore, LN has also offset a lot of the load for smaller txs as it was intended to be. Several exchanges have also opted for it, too.
Again, you either do not know what you are talking about, or are simply making absurd arguments to distort the reality that a system that competes with VISA and MC has emerged all while being snubbed by most of you here.
Is it perfect? Hell no, absolutely not; but it does work and unlike te payment rails you are relying on they cannot be shutdown or censored as much as many people have tried.
Mining half empty blocks while on the surface is alarming it's actually a sign of progress, mempool bloat is one of the attack vectors that was used in 2014 and then in 2017, which made Segwit necessary; but again, I doubt you have any idea of what any of that means and the implications of it so I'll stop here.
Either way, this is going no where and to be honest it's not worth engaging with any further as they are just the same tired talking points that always get brought up and repeated all of which can be refuted with a simple google search.